


stand here beside me baby, watch the orange glow

by serenitysea



Series: i'm gonna buy this place and start a fire [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, mostly season two compliant, skye is stubborn as the day is long, some romance believe it or not, these feels are nothing we were ever trained for, ward is still the best SO that ever supervised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenitysea/pseuds/serenitysea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sequel to 'start as you mean to go on.'</p><p>aka: the one where skye spent the night at ward's cabin in the woods -- she doesn't want to be a weapon anymore but she doesn't know how to be anything else.</p><p>(set months in the future, when he's been released from shield custody on good behavior and she's been shot and had nowhere else to go.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	stand here beside me baby, watch the orange glow

**Author's Note:**

> some things you need to know: 
> 
> \+ i ship skyeward but first and foremost i ship these two FIGURING OUT WHO THEY ARE FIRST, **separately** before ANYTHING ever happens. 
> 
> \+ that said, this obviously takes place in the future. 
> 
> \+ it will be helpful if you read the first part of this series prior to this, as it hinges directly upon the events inside that fic. 
> 
> \+ this was written well before the premiere so if anything doesn't totally jive for you, please give it a pass. 
> 
> \+ these two break my heart on the REGULAR and my personal tagline has never been more true: THESE FEELS ARE NOTHING WE WERE EVER TRAINED FOR.

honey  
all the movements  
you're starting to make  
see me crumble  
and fall on my face  
  
and i know the mistakes  
that i've made  
see it all disappear  
without chase  
  
 _a rush of blood to the head_ | **coldplay**  


* * *

  
She takes the bed.  
  
She doesn't actually want to take his bed — it smells too much like him and is a constant, visceral reminder of where she is — but there is only one bedroom in the cabin and Ward is every bit as capable of stubbornness as she is. His firm refusal and insistence that she sleep there is laced with concern that she is not used to receiving (she fights her own battles these days and everyone kind of steers clear when she has _that look_ in her eye) and has the bewildering effect of coming from a source that she had long since stopped relying on.  
  
(She is a one woman army, kicking ass and taking names. There is no time for soft looks or concerned feelings; not on her behalf. She has the next mission and to take care of her team, and focus on the information that needs to make its way to Coulson. And that is all.)  
  
He walks out and disappears somewhere in the little house and it is not long before she turns off the light.  
  
(She takes the bed.)  
  
*  
  
When he wakes up around three am, the cabin is quiet.  
  
The benefit of having small living quarters is knowing what is happening at any given time.  
  
There isn't anything in particular that is screaming out of place or strange noise to have woken him up — just the internal feeling that something is off.  
  
He walks into the bedroom and sees Skye sitting with her knees drawn up as she stares out the window unseeingly. There is a floorboard he makes certain to step on as it will alert her to his presence. Sure enough, she jumps and fixes a laser intense gaze on him.  
  
They stand there in silence — Ward in the doorway, Skye folded into herself on the bed — until he dips his head to meet her eyes. "Can't sleep?"  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"Do you want to… talk about it?" He hates that it is so awkward between them, despite the emotional breakthrough they'd shared earlier. Talking about feelings is hardly his favorite thing to do but his had been a long road to recovery and if there was one thing he had learned, it was undeniable necessity of doing just _that_ to begin the healing process.  
  
The silence reigns in the bedroom for so long that he wonders if she even heard him. He knows the value of time and patience and so he won't push her to talk about it if she doesn't want to. (But god, he wishes there was more he could do.)  
  
Skye hugs her knees tighter and privately thinks Ward is standing in the doorway like he has been made to keep all her demons at bay. She has to clear her throat twice before her voice can be heard, and even then, it is small and low. "I feel like I'll never be whole again. Like there's nothing left."  
  
"Skye," he shakes his head slowly. "They can't take away _who you are_. That girl still exists."  
  
"I can't _find_ her," Skye hates that her voice is cracking with emotion. "I'm just a gun. They tell me where to shoot."  
  
He cannot take this pain away from her, despite how badly he wants to (and _oh_ , does he ever want to.) "Tell me."  
  
Skye looks at him with alarm. "I couldn't —"  
  
"Do you honestly think there is _anything_ you can say to me that I won't understand?"  
  
  
( _someday you'll understand_.)  
  
  
(And she is flung back into that moment on the Bus, where he is being stubborn and heartbreakingly vulnerable and now she knows, _she knows_ what it's like to be someone's weapon and she is _tired_ of carrying this burden on her own —)  
  
  
Her face hardens and she is brittle with tension. "You want this? Fine." There is a flask that she grabs from the nightstand (where had _that_ been hidden?) and takes a long swallow. "Two weeks after we locked you up, I killed a man. He was my first. And I didn't have anyone to talk to after, or tell me that everything was going to be okay."  
  
Ward closes his eyes with regret and inhales sharply. He knows she doesn't want his pity, but this — _this_ is what they should have been looking for when she began taking on more responsibility. _How had no one seen this_? He should have _been_ there to help her.  
  
She continues in a dull voice, "I threw up everything I'd eaten in the past 18 hours. May sent me to Simmons because she thought I'd caught some kind of a stomach bug. Except when I got there, Jemma had her hands full taking care of —" she stops, seeming to catch herself. "— I didn't tell her what was going on."  
  
He clenches his fist tightly and tries to remind himself that anger is not the answer. (He just doesn't know who he's angry at; himself, for not being there, Coulson for putting her into the line of fire; May for not being more aware of the damage being done; all of them for breaking Skye a little more each day and molding her into who they all _thought_ she should be instead of who she _needed_ to be.)  
  
"After that, it got a little easier. I knew what to expect. How it would make me feel. When to shut it down just to get the job done."  
  
Ward remembers the first time he killed another man and how after, John had given him a tumbler of scotch. He'd clapped him on the shoulder and said that it would only get easier from there. (How was it possible that John Garrett was more in touch than Coulson and May?)  
  
"They gave me my first mark after I saw you. It was some kind of a reward, I guess. That if I could handle _you_ and stay compartmentalized, I was ready for the big stuff in the field." Skye closes her eyes, tips her head back against the wall. "I panicked. He touched me and I just… lost it."  
  
Ward can't help it — he instinctively grabs for her hand tightly and doesn't let go.  
  
She lets him, unconsciously holding on. "Trip had to extract me. It was a total cluster. The guy pulled a knife and I totally froze."  
  
The mental image that is being painted in his head is not a good one and he has to focus on breathing steadily and keeping his grip on her hand steady (but not crushing) to take his mind off the frustration he feels toward his former boss and pilot.  
  
"When we got back to base, I thought Coulson would come to see me. That he'd reprimand me for not having my head in the game and disobeying orders. Tell me I was being reckless by taking chances and not being ready." When she opens her eyes, Ward can easily read the wreckage left behind by the new Director of Shield. "He never came. Neither did May. Simmons said they were swamped with work, but. I could have cost them everything. We almost lost Trip."  
  
He notices that she does not mention anything about herself.  
  
"After that, it was just easier to go somewhere else in my mind."  
  
She doesn't cry.  
  
She is too _raw_ to cry.  
  
She just looks down at her hand, where it is joined with his and absently drags a thumb over his knuckles. It feels better, somehow. That the weight inside her has lifted, ever so slightly, having told him the worst parts of it. Knowing that he doesn't think less of her because she's weak. That she has regrets.  
  
When she looks into his eyes, there is nothing but patient, steady understanding. It gives her the strength to admit what she hasn't dared to tell another soul. "I want to be _me_ again."  
  
"You _will_ ," Ward vows adamantly. There is such steely determination in his voice that shakes her free from the melancholy tone of recalling the past few months. When he looks at her, she almost feels like that girl from the cargo hold who said _bang bang_ when learning how to pull the trigger. It is somehow cleansing and soothing at the same time.  
  
And maybe now isn't the time for this —  
  
  
( _It's not like this is a good time to start anything._  
  
 _There's never a **good** time._ )  
  
  
— but she's so damn _tired_ of having to put on a front, and lie, and pretend like it isn't killing her to keep it together. Ward is offering sanctuary free of strings or recrimination. He offers safety in a way that he couldn't offer before — because he has _been_ where she is, and he _knows_ firsthand what this is like.  
  
(And this is the closest she's felt to being _human_ in months.)  
  
She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth and pulls away slowly, gauging his reaction.  
  
Ward tightens the grip he has on her hand almost painfully. "Skye, don't do this."  
  
"You're pushing me away?"  
  
He carefully tilts her face up so that she is forced to meet his eyes. "No. _Never_. You've been through so much. I think we both know that this is the last thing that should happen right now."  
  
She nearly screams with frustration. There _has_ to be a way to make him understand. That this is _different_. "When people look at me now all they see is a weapon. But when you look at me, I feel like a person again."  
  
Ward makes an inhuman sound and seems to lose the fight he has with himself, kissing her fiercely. She grabs his shoulders and pulls closer, wrapping whatever limbs she can around him until there is no space between them. She _needs_ this. She needs to feel close to him and to know that someone can finally see her for who she is.  
  
He mouths a path along her neck and leaves a scorching path in its wake. It **_burns_** where he kisses her. It burns fire-bright through the dark bitterness she's had circling her heart for months.  
  
" _Skye_ ," he breathes into the curve of her collarbone.  
  
She raises her arms in unspoken invitation and Ward lifts the shirt over her head — and the searing intensity in his gaze evaporates the last of her doubt. It slices through the guilt and destroys it, leaving nothing but sweet weightless freedom in its place. Like _nothing_ is unattainable — like she can finally _breathe_ again after being trapped in a cave without air. She feels like she could move mountains and topple empires and shatter regimes with that kind of unwavering support at her side.  
  
(She is not a weapon anymore.)  
  
Skye moves forward until he is forced to fall back, taking her weight on top of him. "Don't let go."  
  
Ward lifts a hand to brush the hair away from her eyes so that he can see the light as it begins burning into existence again.  
  
(And _there_ she is.)  
  
"Never."


End file.
